Lucky Luciano
Charles "Lucky" Luciano (24 November 1897-26 January 1962), born Salvatore Lucania, was an American Mafia don who served as boss of the Genovese crime family from 1931 to 1946, succeeding Joe Masseria and preceding Frank Costello. Luciano created the modern American Mafia by assassinating the Sicilian crime lords Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano in 1931, abolishing the title Capo di tutti capi ("boss of all bosses") and replacing it with "The Commission", the governing body of the Mafia. Luciano also oversaw the division of New York's Mafia into the "Five Families", and he led the Mafia into the heroin/narcotics and casino business, setting up operations in Cuba and Nevada. Luciano would die in retirement in Italy in 1962, and he is often considered to be the father of the modern Mafia. Biography Early life Salvatore Lucania was born in Lercara Friddi, Sicily, Italy on 24 November 1897, and his family emigrated to the United States in 1907 when he was just nine. He worked as a hat delivery boy, but he later became a gambler and a member of a street gang in the Five Points section of New York City. Luciano, working as a pimp, became friends with Meyer Lansky and began a partnership in crime which later became a heroin operation; Luciano, Lansky, and Bugsy Siegel gave a cut of the action to their boss, the powerful bootlegger and gambler Arnold Rothstein. Castellammarese War in 1923]] In 1920, Joe Masseria recruited Luciano into his family, and Luciano had to pay Masseria a large percentage of his card game and heroin profits. Luciano and Lansky eventually warmed up to Masseria, and Luciano was treated as a second in command. Starting in 1923, Luciano was able to import rum and heroin from the Caribbean via Tampa, Florida, with Masseria's cousin Vincenzo Petrucelli running the shipping route; this angered Lansky's business partner Enoch Thompson, who discovered that the heroin was being given to his enemy Valentin Narcisse. Thompson and Luciano had been enemies for years, as Luciano was involved in the D'Alessio brothers' war with Thompson in 1920, and had been involved in stealing Thompson's liquor. Rise to power By 1925, Luciano was sitting on top of the largest bootlegging operation in the USA, importing Scotch from Scotland, rum from the Caribbean, and whiskey from Canada. In 1929, during the Castellammarese War between the Masseria crime family and Maranzano crime family, Luciano was nearly killed by some of Salvatore Maranzano's police henchmen when he was stabbed and beaten in Staten Island, leaving him with notable scars and a droopy eye. Luciano decided to switch allegiance to Maranzano in 1931 when the tide turned against Masseria. Luciano arranged for a sitdown with Masseria at a Brooklyn restaurant, where Tonino Sandrelli and Bugsy Siegel gunned him down. Luciano was given Masseria's rackets by Maranzano, although Maranzano did not trust him. Luciano and Lansky would plot to kill Thompson in Havana, Cuba, but this attempt failed due to the intervention of Arquimedes Ortiz, Thompson's bodyguard. Johnny Torrio later gave his support to Luciano and his family, and they went to war with Thompson. Luciano firebombed Thompson's liquor shipments and took his nephew Willie Thompson hostage, and the war ended when Thompson agreed to give all of his holdings in Atlantic City to Luciano and his ally Pinky Rabinowitz. Rabinowitz became the new political boss of the city, and Luciano had Valentin Narcisse killed so that his family could take over the city. Mafia boss After becoming the most powerful mob boss, Luciano decided to democratize the American Mafia by forming The Commission, ensuring that there was no self-proclaimed "boss of all bosses". Luciano became the first boss of the Genovese crime family, and he expanded his criminal operations to include casinos in Cuba and Las Vegas, Nevada. Even when he was arrested and sentenced to 30 years in prison for prostitution in 1934, he was allowed to live in exile in Italy in exchange for protecting New York harbor from "German saboteurs" during World War II, and he died in Naples in 1962 at the age of 64. Category:1897 births Category:1962 deaths Category:Italian-Americans Category:Italians Category:Americans Category:Catholics Category:Criminals Category:Crime bosses Category:Genovese crime family Category:Rothstein Gang Category:Masseria crime family Category:Democratic Party members Category:New York Democrats Category:American liberals Category:Liberals Category:Pimps Category:Mafiosi Category:Italian emigrants to America Category:People from New York City Category:People from New York Category:People from Manhattan